


Onomastikós

by HeliosAlpha



Category: Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, I knocked this together in a couple of hours or so don't judge me, Pre-Canon, musings on names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 16:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20028730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeliosAlpha/pseuds/HeliosAlpha
Summary: Mama, why do you answer to so many names?Little one, they know me by many names, for I do many things.Will I ever be given another name?Sweet girl, I’m sure you will.For her crimes in the mortal realm, Kore will answer to a mortal judgement.





	Onomastikós

**Author's Note:**

> Onomastics - the study of naming.

This humiliation was not to be borne. 

Mortal men assuming that they could interfere in the workings of justice between gods and goddesses? It was unthinkable. In fact, it was well past time she intervened and put a stop to this nonsense. Frankly, everyone involved had overstepped their mark, Kore included. Sitting herself down in amongst her favourite plants in the most private corner of her gardens, Demeter decided that she would conclude these frivolities tomorrow before the trial. Men casting judgement on deities. Absolutely not. But she would capture this now, small, before it got out of hand and Olympus felt the need to intervene. The less exposure to that world that the innocent, sweet Kore got, the better.

Thinking back on the awful events of the day, the thing that kept urging its way to the forefront of Demeter’s mind, unbidden, was Kore’s hair.

Her hair. Long, silky, pearlescent, it trailed on the floor behind her in curling swathes. Even when sticky with congealing blood, it declared her divinity to all present. Kore, the maiden, the Goddess of Spring. Demeter bristled as Kore’s mortal captors paid her tresses no heed, crushing the gentle waves underfoot and pulling her daughter’s head abruptly back with a snap as they bound her wrists in thick rope. Demeter cried out in outrage and started forward, before a nymph jumped out and grasped her arm. The indignity, the insolence - the girl quailed under Demeter’s glare.

“Lady, she’s thinking,” she pleaded. “Look at her, Lady.” 

There was truth to it. Kore’s expression was blank, gazing somewhere into the middle distance, like she did when piecing together complicated mathematics. Demeter hated to admit it, but she was relieved to see that Kore was no longer angry. Nineteen years old, still a child, and full of terrible rage. Licks of red flame had adorned her like a crown of thorns and Kore had wrought destruction in this place. Demeter would have to end this, but begrudgingly, she had accepted that Kore was, indeed, thinking.

And isn’t that what she had wanted all along? Her girl child, her little one? Ever since her powers had begun to manifest, she had begged for independence. Demeter shuddered at the thought that her own control had in some way led to...this. She smoothed her skirts down in a self soothing gesture and reached out to prune a dead leaf from an elm. This could not possibly be a reflection of her. Kore was wilful; she would have to be instructed otherwise.

***

Kore was still bound, Demeter was irked to find, on the morning she strode into the mortal market town for the trial. 

The Heliaia had convened, a small jury for a crime of this magnitude, but a large one for such a rural place. This was no city, laws were more fluid here. And yet…

The nominated juror spoke, with a quavering voice. “We commend you, goddess, for your adherence to our laws. We hope that this marks the inception of a new way of living amicably together, be our origins Olympian or lower born.”

Kore inclined her head wordlessly. 

Her hair.

The soft locks that once so delicately framed her face were completely gone. Cropped closely to her head, what remained served to make Kore’s petite, elfin features look angular and severe, beyond her mere nineteen years.

The worthless mortal continued. “Those who were there have made statements to the jury. These are as follows.” He read from a scroll, pausing to confirm facts with Kore. She did not speak more than was necessary, simply nodding to confirm the events of the day.

“And this mortal woman had been known by each of these men, it is known?”

Kore’s dispassionate expression changed, ever so slightly. A narrowing of the lips indicated her disapproval, and she spoke. “Yes. But not through choice.”

“And this is why you claim to have been so moved by her untimely death, correct?”

“She cursed them as she died.”

“So you chose to enact that curse.”

“I was compelled to,” she stated firmly.

The vile, wretched juror, now gaining confidence in his paltry role, read aloud a description of what Kore had done. Six lives ended in terrible, unfettered rage. The mortal audience shuddered to hear the descriptions of her wrath. Demeter watched, waiting for the right moment to intervene. Already framing her own defense for days to come, when she would stand trial for a similar crime on Olympus. How many mortals would she have to kill to protect her daughter?

“With all of the facts as we understand them accepted by Kore, and murder being a capital punishment, there can be no alternative outcome,” the juror finished, almost smugly. “Even goddesses must accept consequences, and Kore must be punished.”

She spoke now, and she was calm. “Kore must be punished?”

“Yes.”

“And only Kore?”

“Well, yes,” the juror responded hesitantly. “The other guilty parties in this case are already dead.”

“I’m not referring to them,” Kore responded cooly. “So only Kore can be judged for this crime.”

“Yes.”

And she smiled now, a terrible, wrathful smile. “But I am not Kore.”

A hushed commotion went up in the courtyard, and even Demeter looked around for confirmation of what she was hearing. The nymphs in her court seemed just as shocked as she was. Ever the expert. Checkmate.

She continued. “I am not Kore,” she repeated over the whispers and murmurings. “I am Persephone.” The jurors gaped, mouths open, as the name settled into their mythos and they understood it for its true meaning. “And I am not mortal. I do the things mortals need me to do. A tool, or a weapon. And in cases of murder where blame cannot be placed upon the person who peformed the action, tradition dictates that the weapon is placed into exile. Is this not true?”

The jurors conferred for a moment, dozens of voices rising and falling, and an agreement was offered. This was the law.

Kore - Persephone - met her mother’s eyes across the crowd. “So let it be, then. Persephone is exiled. I will go to Olympus.”

Demeter’s daughter had indeed been thinking.


End file.
